Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Sermo is one of many online medical communities. I tried it a few years back, but deleted my membership out of boredom. I'd never written any posts, and got tired of the daily emails on such controversial topics as "doctors should provide patient care," "we all want to make more money," and "hospitals are for sick people."

Anyway, apparently they've livened things up (or it was online sweeps week) because my reader Sally sent in this headline, which was a "Sermo Pick" last week (on Valentine's Day, no less):

(click to enlarge)

This was, actually, a tragic story. A married doctor (Hyo Shin, age 64) had been having an 18-month affair with Sarah Garibay (age 29) a lady he met at a strip bar, and became her "sugar daddy". He died after her other sugar daddy (Jeff Clay, age 49) walked in on them at an inopportune time and beat Dr. Shin. The doctor then jumped out a window to escape, and eventually died from his injuries. Clay has been sentenced to 12 years for voluntary manslaughter.

In a surprising twist, the late Dr. Shin's wife told the court that her husband had "a high moral standard and would not stand for one speck of immorality."

The wife of the convicted Mr. Clay testified that he was "hard-working and non-violent", and that she still wanted him to come back to her even though he'd been seeing 2 other women and using methamphetamine.

Another story noted that Miss Garibay (who denied being a prostitute) testified in court while "wearing a short skirt and low-cut top." She said she "immensely" loved her married boyfriend Clay, and was "hurt" that he subsequently tried to hire a prison inmate to kill her, too.

Anyway, I asked some of my colleagues about their takes on this story, and they had a few pointers:

I lived at the Air Force base near Yuba City (Beale) and yes, this is as good as it gets there. Sat on a Court Martial for a young NCO that made the mistake of going to one of those Yuba City strip clubs too. I wholehearted agree with Mike's view on the moral of the story.

In defense of Sermo, we also discuss medical topics. Just this morning, we have had discussions of brain tumors, appendicitis in small children, drug addiction, drug interactions, cardiac drugs, infectious disease issues, radiology dilemmas, transfusion reactions, difficulty in placement for the elderly, shoulder reductions, homeopathy, ....all before lunch!Yes, some of the posts are not completely medical. Surprise, doctors talk about stuff besides medicine! But it's almost always interesting.

umm yeah the other stories on that link were so much better. The one about the obits has great comments and I think the lady whose husband requested professional mourners and ululations needs to have his will published. Just saying cause paying for sex in a military town is not that surprising.

So I am reading this story and shaking my head, thinking "It sounds like something that would happen around here." and then I get to the last paragraph; I live about an hour NORTH of Yuba City (further up and further in to meth country) Guess this is why I rarely read the local news.

I was going to answer indignantly to number 6, (No, there really isn't anything better to do in Yuba City) but it seems that most of your other readers have been close neighbors of mine for years and have already let you in on all the tourism highlights, FYI Yuba city is not scariest in twin cities, it gets worse

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

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